Creating an Offline Cube Manually

To create an offline cube by hand, start with an OLAP-based pivot table. Place your cursor anywhere inside the pivot table, and then go up to the Options tab in the Ribbon and select OLAP Tools O Offline OLAP. This will activate the Offline OLAP Settings dialog box, where you will select Create Offline Data File.

From here, you will step through a wizard that allows you to select the dimensions, levels, and measures you want to make available in the offline cube. Keep in mind that your selections through this wizard will determine the data that will be available to you while disconnected from the server. The last screen of the offline cube wizard allows you to select the location and name of your cube file.

Once the process is complete, your reward will be a .cub file that can be used as the data source for your pivot table reports. You can either double-click the cube file or open the cube file from Excel.

Any attempt to refresh an offline cube file will cause the cube file to try to connect to the original OLAP data source. The idea is that you can use the data within the cube file while you are disconnected from the network, and you can refresh the cube file while a data connection is available.